Tag Archives: Economics

Whatever Happened to Peace Officers?

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“The deterioration in police conduct, and the militarization of local police forces, quite simply and quite predictably mirrors the rise of the total state itself.  When it comes to your local police, there is no shopping around, there is no customer service, and there is no choice. Without market competition, market price signals, and market discipline, government has no ability or incentive to provide what people really want, which is peaceful and effective security for themselves, their families, their homes, and their property. As with everything government purports to provide, the public wants Andy Griffith but ends up with the Terminator.”

https://www.mises.org/daily/6643/Whatever-Happened-to-Peace-Officers

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America’s Dwindling Economic Freedom

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“World economic freedom has reached record levels, according to the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom, released Tuesday by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. But after seven straight years of decline, the U.S. has dropped out of the top 10 most economically free countries.  Hong Kong continues to dominate the list, followed by Singapore, Australia, Switzerland, New Zealand and Canada. These are the only countries to earn the index’s ‘economically free’ designation.  The U.S. and the U.K, historically champions of free enterprise, have suffered the most pronounced declines. Both countries now fall in the ‘mostly free’ category.”

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303848104579308811265028066

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Denmark scraps world’s first fat tax [2012]

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“About a year ago, the Danish government tested out a policy never before seen in the world. It implemented an across-the-board tax on all foods with a saturated fat content above 2.3 percent, with the hopes of reducing consumption of unhealthy foods.  But it didn’t quite work that way. Some Danes did indeed switch to lower fat cheeses  and dairy products, The Wall Street Journal’s Clemens Bomsdorf reports. But a lot of them simply began to do their grocery shopping internationally, heading to countries that didn’t levy a fine on fat.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/11/13/denmark-scraps-worlds-first-fat-tax/

About a year ago, the Danish government tested out a policy never before seen in the world. It implemented an across-the-board tax on all foods with a saturated fat content above 2.3 percent, with the hopes of reducing consumption of unhealthy foods.

But it didn’t quite work that way. Some Danes did indeed switch to lower fat cheeses  and dairy products, The Wall Street Journal’s Clemens Bomsdorf reports. But a lot of them simply began to do their grocery shopping internationally, heading to countries that didn’t levy a fine on fat:

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Watch the Movie Before it is Filmed

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“Once a government has applied force and the force has failed in its objective, the government almost invariably reacts by applying more force—more of what caused the problem in the first place. The importance of this tendency cannot be overstated. Almost invariably, what does happen is that greater force is applied. Greater, more reckless and more irrational force.  Those who live in a country that has reached the decline stage may reason, ‘My country is following a similar pattern to that of Venezuela, so I should face the fact that, soon, I can expect the pattern to complete itself. I should anticipate the price controls, takeover of private sector factories, etc., and finally, governing by decree.'”

https://www.internationalman.com/78-global-perspectives/1066-watch-the-movie-before-it-is-filmed

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Toilet paper shortage because ‘Venezuelans are eating more’: govt

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“The head of Venezuela’s stats office, INE, Elias Eljuri came up with the argument on revealing that the latest households’ budget poll showed that Venezuelans now ‘were having three meals a day and even more’.  According to the survey released by Eljuri, ‘95% of the Venezuelan population, estimated in 29 million, now feed three to four times a day’.  The poll triggered an immediate reaction of anger and fits of laughter in the country transformed by the Bolivarian revolution.  On the one side people were furious because INE released the information in the midst of one of the moments of greatest scarcity with supermarket shelves virtually empty.”

http://en.mercopress.com/2013/05/24/toilet-paper-shortage-is-because-venezuelans-are-eating-more-argues-the-government

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Venezuelan president Maduro gets power to rule by decree

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“Maduro requested a month ago to be given expanded power to enact laws without consulting congress for up to a year.  Maduro in recent days has ordered the military to seize dozens of appliance stores, slash prices on imported electronics and arrest more than 100 business owners for alleged price gouging.  the Venezuelan unit of General Motors was fined the equivalent of US$85,000 for allegedly overcharging and practicing ‘usury’ in the sale of car parts to local concessionaires. The government also asked Twitter to take down accounts of users posting the illegal black market exchange rate for Venezuela‘s bolivar currency, which is trading at about one-tenth of the official value.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/20/maduro-power-rule-by-decree

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Paul Craig Roberts: We No Longer Have Free Markets

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“We have all this propaganda about how globalism is bringing free capital markets to the world.  Well, there’s not one here (in the US).  If I’m correct in my conclusion about last Wednesday being an experiment in market manipulation, and then we add to that this policy of the Federal Reserve using its portfolio that it’s bought from quantitative easing for reverse repos, in order to further manipulate the market, then what does the market decide?  Nothing.  The prices of stocks today are due to the liquidity, and obviously also the bonds.  So the notion that there is a capital market that is pricing things is absurd.  These manipulations are pricing them.  How does this differ from central planning?”

http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/12/21_Former_US_Treasury_Official_-_We_No_Longer_Have_Free_Markets.html

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Bullish on Yellen: A Very Good Article From Forbes

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“Yellen has a difficult job to do – to continue the failing stimulation of Western economies. But as we have written previously, she is a kind of sacrificial lamb, chosen because she is a ‘true believer.’ Long-term, Yellen will likely preside over at least the partial destruction of the system she has been named to lead.  But in the shorter term, the inflationary trend will continue and bubbles will grow larger. This is evidently the reason that Yellen has been elevated and this madness will not likely stop until there is a terrific equity blow-off.  Stay tuned.”

http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/34924/Bullish-on-Yellen-A-Very-Good-Article-From-Forbes/

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Robert Rector: How the War on Poverty Was Lost

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“According to a variety of government sources, including census data and surveys by federal agencies, the typical American living below the poverty level in 2013 lives in a house or apartment that is in good repair, equipped with air conditioning and cable TV. His home is larger than the home of the average nonpoor French, German or English man. He has a car, multiple color TVs and a DVD player. More than half the poor have computers and a third have wide, flat-screen TVs. The overwhelming majority of poor Americans are not undernourished and did not suffer from hunger for even one day of the previous year.”

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303345104579282760272285556

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Bill Bonner: Time for a Cease-Fire In the War on Poverty

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“Meanwhile, the 50th anniversary of the feds’ ‘War on Poverty’ came and went last week, without much notice.  As in many other of the feds’ wars, we don’t know which side we should be on. We’ve got nothing against poverty. Then, again, we’ve got nothing against wealth either. People should be able to decide for themselves what they want out of life.  But during the Johnson administration the rich got the idea that they should exterminate poverty… or at least gain a political advantage by appearing to try to do so.  So it was that on January 8, 1964, LBJ declared war: ‘This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.’  That was 50 years and $20 trillion ago.”

http://www.bonnerandpartners.com/time-for-a-cease-fire-in-the-war-on-poverty/

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